Responses to New Feral Cat Policies
Objective: Return SF ACC and SF SPCA to doing what they've been doing for 20 years: connect Trappers IMMEDIATELY with kitten finders!
Even better, re-open the “Mama from the Streets” feral cat nursery
San Francisco has a wealth of resources such as numerous volunteer trappers, foster parents, rescue groups and donors.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: Appear to believe that cats, when feral, are wild animals.
SF Cat Community: All cats are domestic animals (same as dogs).
Feral cats have been known to bond with the humans who provide food for them.
Domestic cats that live “in the wild”, both feral and social, live for 7 years on average, which is less than half as long as homed cats. It is not a life without stress.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: Policy changes were made with no consultation with the SF cat community.
SF Cat Community: If this is such a good policy, why has SF ACC and SF SPCA been secretive about it? Why have they not reached out to the SF cat community?
SF ACC and SF SPCA: A noisy shelter is too stressful for a nursing queen and her kittens.
SF Cat Community: The feral cat nursery was not noisy and stressful.
San Francisco foster homes are not noisy and stressful.
San Francisco has many foster homes willing to take in small kittens.
Fostering a queen with her kittens is easiest on the queen (safe, quiet, no need to hunt for food) and her kittens (easily socialized, safe from predators). It's also easier for foster humans, who do not have to feed the kittens every 2 hours around the clock, because mom is nursing them.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: Kittens should be left in the wild until they are weaned. Residents can watch over them.
SF Cat Community: Many kittens will not survive due to disease, predation by raccoons and coyotes, or being disposed of by impatient residents. Estimates range from 50% to 75% mortality rate for kittens in the wild.
Ironically, the feral cat population will increase as the surviving kittens become feral moms as early as 6 months of age.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: Queens and kittens can be trapped for TNR after the kittens are weaned.
SF Cat Community: San Francisco has capable, experienced trappers who have found it is much easier to lure a queen into a trap using her very young, nursing kittens, thus able to place queen and kittens in foster care where the survival rate is very high for the kittens.
After 3 weeks, kittens are fast and able to quickly hide in the wild, make them difficult to trap.
Queens will often move their litter, thus making it difficult to locate them later.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: “Wait until 8®” “Instead of admitting young, unweaned kittens, the shelter gives the person who found the kittens the tools to care for the kittens. Or, the kittens can go into foster homes.
SF Cat Community: This article talks about orphaned kittens, not queens with their kittens.
Many residents don't have the time and skill to care for very young kittens (bottle fed every 2 hours). But there are many in the SF cat community who are willing to do so. It requires notifying Trappers of the kittens' location, so the kittens can go into foster homes.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: “Mama from the Streets” initiative has ended and the SPCA's feral cat nursery has been closed.
SF Cat Community: The SPCA’s feral cat nursery was located away from the shelter’s hustle and bustle, with limited access, to reduce stress levels for the mamas.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: No longer inform Trappers of reported queens and kittens.
SF Cat Community: If SF ACC and SF SPCA no longer want to care for queens and kittens, at least let the SF cat community do so.
If they call cat rescue Trappers so they can trap the queen with their kittens, then both kittens and their Mom have the best chance of survival. The kittens can be socialized/adopted, feral queens TNR’d, and social queens (possibly abandoned) adopted.
SF ACC and SF SPCA: “At ACC we see a 45% mortality rate for very young unweaned kittens”
SF Cat Community: Unweaned and orphaned?
Compared to what?
In one study, 75% of feral kittens died or disappeared before 6 months of age, a survival rate similar to other small carnivores.
Many foster parents claim they experience a mortality rate of near 0%. And end up with a 'feral' Moms sleeping on their bed.
SFACC’s data does not indicate whether a kitten comes in with a mom or not. SFACC euthanizes any kitten that comes into the shelter with it’s eyes closed.
UPDATE: Turns out the 45% statistic included a majority of kittens that arrived at the shelter already deceased (DOA).
Are the current SF ACC and SF SPCA staff, including the veterinarians, afraid of cats? Have the experienced cat staff been pushed out?
Are the SF ACC and SF SPCA doing this for monetary reasons? Or to improve the Live Release Rate by leaving unweaned feral kittens in the wild.